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Uncommon galaxy 23 EP

IC 298A

RA 47.8271° · Dec 1.3150° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
23 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Galaxy +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 23

11 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Deep in the extragalactic distance — further than the entire Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
  • Scale. Home to hundreds of billions of stars — a universe unto itself, and every one of those points of light could have planets.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 16.1 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Cetus.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 7.7 trillion years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

constellation
Cet
dist ly
438748830.2195
dso type
G
mag
16.12
name
IC 298A
radial velocity kms
9267
redshift
0.0314
size arcmin
0.54
surface brightness
23.52

About IC 298A

IC 298A is an uncommon galaxy. It lies about 438,748,830.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cet and shines at apparent magnitude 16.12.

A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for IC 298A in the constellation Cet. At apparent magnitude 16.12, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, IC 298A is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why IC 298A is an uncommon galaxy

IC 298A scores 23 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely and Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.